Driving mechanism for orbitally adjustable rotary shear cutter mandrels



Jan. 26, 1965 J, CROWE 35 3 DRIVING MECHANISM FOR ORBITALLY ADJUSTABLE ROTARY SHEAR CUTTER MANDRELS Filed April 10 1963 3 sheet -sheet 1 FIG. 2

INVENTOR.

Jan. 26, 1965 T. J. cRowE DRIVING MECHANISM FOR ORBITALLY ADJUSTABLE ROTARY SHEAR CUTTER MANDRELS 5 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed April 10 1963 INVENTOR.

BY WW fray/V5) 3,166,948 DJUSTABLE ELS Jan. 26, 1965 T. J. CROWE DRIVING MECHANISM FOR ORBITALLY A ROTARY SHEAR CUTTER NANDR 3 Sheets-Sheet. 3

Filed April 10. 1963 FIG. 4

FIG. 5

I TWP/VI) United States Patent DRWWG MECHANISM FQR ORBITALLY ADJUST- ABLE ROTARY SHEAR CUTTER MANDRELS Thomas J. Crowe, Mount Fern, NJ assignor to Cameron Machine Company, Dover, NJ., a corporation of New York Filed Apr. 10, 1963, Ser. No. 271,945 2 Claims. ((31. 74-397) This invention relates to improved means for driving orbitally adjustable mandrels carrying overlapping, circular rotary shear-cutting blades such as are quite commonly employed for slitting web materials during the winding of the latter from one roll to another.

For such slitting purposes it is'common to provide a pair of driven, spaced, parallel mandrels on which the circular cutters or blades are suitably mounted in overlapping relationship to afford a shearing cutting effect upon web material passing between the mandrels. Different operating conditions dictate differences in the extent of overlap of such cutters and, to atford means for adjusting the spacing of such mandrels to vary such overlap, it has sometimes hitherto been the practice to mount the end bearings of the mandrels eccentrically within bearing sleeves which may be turned to adjust the axes of the mandrels orbitally and thereby vary the spacing of the mandrels and the extent of overlap of the circular knives or cutters carried by the mandrels.

When cutter mandrels have been mounted for adjustment in the manner just described, serious difiiculty has been encountered in providing for driving of the cutter mandrels to turn them about their own axes during a slitting operation, this diificulty arising because of the dimculty in providing for the driving means to operate irrespective of the orbital positions to which the mandrels might be adjusted. In past arrangements it has usually been necessary to employ separate driving shafts and universal joints in the means for driving each of such adjustable mandrels. Such plural shafts are inconsistent with desirable compactness, and universal joints may give rise to frequent maintenance operations which, in addition to their own costs, give rise to further costs caused by breaks in the continuity of use and operation of the slitting machine.

Substantially improved driving means for such cutter mandrels in a slitting machine are provided, according to the broader aspects of this invention, by mounting a driven, dish-shaped gear to rotate about a fixed axis concentric with the circular orbital adjustment path of a cutter mandrel which is to be driven; this dish gear having internal teeth continuously meshing with a pinion keyed upon an adjacent end of the cutter mandrel irrespective of the orbital position to which the mandrel may be adjusted. Inasmuch as two such mandrels must rotate in opposite directions during a slitting operation, a similar dish gear is mounted to rotate similarly about a fixed axis concentric with a circular orbital adjustment path of the additional or second mandrel to mesh similarly with a pinion keyed upon the adjacent end of the second mandrel to drive the latter; and the two mentioned dish gears are provided with intermeshing external teeth so that both of said dish gears and, hence, both of the said mandrels may be driven by a single drive shaft connected to only one of the dish gears. As a matter of convenience, such dish-shaped gears having both internal and external teeth are sometimes hereinafter referred to merely as compound dish gears.

Lidhhfii i Patented Jan. 26, 1965 As a means of affording an understanding of this invention, a single embodiment thereof is: shown in the accompanying drawings without, however, limiting the invention to that particular embodiment.

In the accompanying drawings:

FIGURE 1 is a side elevational view of a shear-slitting apparatus of the character to which the present invention relates.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged end elevational view of said mechanism as viewed from the right end of FIG. 1.

FIG. 3 is an even more substantially enlarged, approximately central vertical sectional view of a housing of said mechanism (the left side housing as shown in FIG. 1) in which driving means, according to this invention, are provided.

FIG. 4 is a vertical cross-sectional view substantially on the line 4-4 of FIG. 3.

FIG. 5 is a vertical cross-sectional view substantially on the line 5 of FIG. 3.

The disclosed slitting machine, as may best be visualized from FIG. 1, comprises a fixed drive-support housing iii suitably fixed upon a base 12 adaptable for fixation upon a floor surface adjacent to winding machinery with which the slitting machine cooperates. The machine also includes a slidably adjustable housing 14, slidable in a straight line on said base, between guide members 15, toward and away from the housing iii. The housing 14 may be locked into any adjusted position by any suitable means, as, for example, by headed locking screws 17 extending through slots 19 at the bottom of housing 14 and threaded into the guide members 15.

A pair of cutter-carrying mandrels lo, 13 are borne at their opposite ends, in the housings 1t} and 14, in parallel relationship and. for rotation in opposite directions. These mandrels carry circular, concentrically mounted slitting knives 28, pairs of which (one on each mandrel) are arranged to overlap as at 21 to exert a longitudinal shearing cutting action upon web material passing between the two mandrels. As the particular manner in which the knives are mounted on the mandrels has no direct bearing upon the present invention, such mounting is shown only diagrammatically.

Journals of the two mandrels in the drive-support housing it) may be substantially alike. Therefore, it should suflice to describe only said journal of mandrel l6 and employ similar reference characters for similar parts of the corresponding journal of mandrel 1% and corresponding and related parts by which said journals are borne and actuated both for driving of said mandrels, as in a cutting operation, and for adjusting the relationship of the axes of said mandrels to vary the extent of overlap 21 of the cutting knives carried by the mandrels.

As best understandable from FIG. 3, the mandrel 16 is formed with a journal 22 having a first bearing portion 22a quite close to the mandrel itself and a second bearing portion 22b spaced outwardly from bearing portion 22a and located quite close to: the outer end of said journal. Anti-friction bearing means, shown as a pair of ball bearing sets 24 are fitted tightly upon journal bearing portion 22a and Within an eccentric bore 26a of an eccentric sleeve 26 which, in turn, is accurately fitted within and adapted adjust the extent of overlap of the cutting knives.

another ring 36, secured by screws 38 (only one being shown), to the outer end of the eccentric sleeve 26, extends laterally of said sleeve and coacts with a flat outer surface 40 of the housing to oppose inward shifting of the eccentric sleeve.

A sleeve bearing or bushing 42 is disposed With an accurate sliding fit between bearing portion 22b of the mandrels journal and an eccentric counterbore 26b in the sleeve 26 in coaxial relation to the latters main bore 26a. The upper-portion of the similar bearing arrangement for mandrel 18 in the housing lit) is shown toward the bottom of FIG. 3.

, The other ends of the mandrels l6 and 18 are suitably, substantially similarly supported in housing 14 in eccentric sleeves and bearings much like .thosealready described with reference to housing it). The ends of the ,mandrels adjacent to housing 14, however, have separable journals in the nature of separate spindles which are borne similarly to the journals 22 and are releasably connected to the adjacent ends of the mandrels by standard machine tool collets. By providing such releasable jourrials and by making certain gearing siidable as hereinafter explained, the housing 14 may temporarily he slid away from the mandrels to permit the knives 24B and spacing sleeves 44 between the knives to be positioned and replaced on the mandrels, as necessary, and locked in place by locking nuts 46.

It will be seen that by adjustably turning the eccentric sleeves 26, supporting the two mandrels in housing 10 and by similarly adjustably turning corresponding eccentric sleeves supporting the two spindles in housing 14-, the degree of overlap of the circular cutting knives, as at 21 in FIG. '1, may be altered; As it is important in varying the overlap of the circular knives to have the eccentric sleeves in the two housings coact with each other, withineach housing and between each housing, a suitable gear mechanism is provided for the purpose of accomplishing the adjustment of turning of said eccentric sleeves and for synchronizing such turning so that the parallelism of the two mandrels 16 and 18 may be maintained at all times.

The mentioned mechanism for providing synchronized turning of the eccentric sleeves includes external ring gears 48 integrally formed or fixed upon the rings 36 of the four eccentriclsleeves in the two housings. These ring gears of eachhousing intermesh andthereby assure gears 48 of the two housings are constrained to turn to gether to maintain the parallelism of the mandrels l6 and 118 by means of a synchronizing shaft 56 upon opposite ends of which are keyed similar gears 52 which are so borne in suitable bearings as to mesh with the lowermost of the ring gears 48 on the two housings.

. Means for turning synchronizing shaft Stl comprise a gear 54, keyed upon said shaft, approximately at its center, and the gear 54 intermeshes with and is driven by a driving gear as keyed upon a drive shaft 58 which is C0nnected to the output of reduction gearing (not shown) carried in a reduction gear housing 69.

Said reduction gearing includes an input spindle 623 to the end of which a suitable, preferably high speed, hand-held and controlled motor (not shown) may be manually applied and held and operated to turn the eccentric sleeves 2d by the just-described mechanism to The gear reduction between the input spindle 62 and the eccentric sleeves 26 is preferably very high so that the operator, effecting a change in the extent of overlap of the cutting knives, may be able to exert very fine control over such overlap alteration.

' The gearISZ which is associated with the gears 48 of housingrldmay be suitably'arranged so that, when the latter is slid toward'or away from the housing 159 to either engage vor clear the right ends of the mandrels i6, r8 and permit application or removal of knives and/ or spacnot considered necessary to give further details thereof."

The driving mechanism of this invention, for rotating the mandrels lo and 18, to cause the circular knives 2% to perform their slitting operation comprises similar gearing for each of said mandrels and a single drive shaft 64 for driving said gearing of both mandrels. Therefore, only such gearing as is directly related to the mandrello need be detailed, the corresponding similar gearing re lated to mandrel 18, to the extent illustrated, being given similar reference characters.

The driving gearing of mandrel 16 comprises a pinion 66 rigidly fixed upon the end of said mandrels, journal 22 and meshing eccentrically, as best seen in FIG. 4, with interior teeth 68 of a compound dish gear 70 having an integral journal 72 rotatably supported in suitable bearings 74, '76 mounted within a bearing plate 78 secured by screws 80 (only one being shown) to the housing 10.

The dish gear 70 related to mandrel 16 and the similar dish gear '70 related to mandrel 13 have external, intermeshing teeth $2 constraining the two dish gears and, 7

hence, the two mandrels lo, 18 posite directions. i

Because of the described intermeshingof teeth 82 on the two dish gears, the single drive shaft 64, integral with to turn together in op- -the journal '72, serves, when driven by a suitable motor (not shown), 'to rotate the two mandrels in opposite directions.

It may readily be understood from FIG. 4 that, even though the journals 22 of-the two mandrels may be adjustably moved, by the means already described, about unison, in

orbits indicated by chain lines in said figure,,the pinion 166, nevertheless, remains at all times in mesh with the teeth 68 of the dish gear so that the shaft 64 and the gearing which it drives need never be readjusted in any way when changes are made knives 263.

Itshould be understood that theinventive concepts disciosed herein may be practiced in other ways without 7 departing from the invention as set forth in the followin claims. i I claim: 7 l. A driving mechanism for a pair of parallel, cuttercarrying mandrels, comprising a first journalintegral with one of said mandrels and orbitally adjustable to vary the relative positions of the axes of the two mandrels, a toothed pinion rigidly fixed to said journal, a dish gear mounted for rotation about a fixed axis and having an internal ring of teeth concentric with the orbital path of adjustment of said journal and meshing continuously with the teeth of said pinion, irrespective of the latters adjusted orbital position, for driving said pinion and said one of the mandrels, a second journal integral with the other of said mandrels, an external ring of teeth on said dish gear,

gear means coacting between said external ring of teeth and said second journal for driving the latter and said other ofthe mandreis, and driving means for rotating said dish gear about its said axis to eifect driving of both said journals and their related mandrels through said dish gear,

2. A mechanism nal being orbitally adjustable, and said gear means comprising asecond toothed pinion rigidly fixed to said second journal, a second dish gear mounted for rotation about a fixed axis and having an internal ring of teeth concentric with the orbital path of adjustment of said second journal and meshing continuously with the teeth of said second in the adjustment of the overlap of the according to claim 1, said second jourpinion, irrespective of the latters adjusted orbital position, References Cited by the Examiner for driving said second pinion and other mandrel, and an UNITED STATES PATENTS external ring of teeth on S'Clld second dish gear; the ex- 2,181,735 11/39 Moore 74*397 ternal rings of teeth on the two dish gears being in intermeshing relationship to constrain both 'of the dish gears 5 2551'659 5/51 Emnck' to rotate in response to said driving means. DON A, WHITE, Primary Examiner. 

1. A DRIVING MECHANISM FOR A PAIR OF PARALLEL, CUTTERCARRYING MANDRELS, COMPRISING A FIRST JOURNAL INTEGRAL WITH ONE OF SAID MANDRELS AND ORBITALLY ADJUSTABLE TO VARY THE RELATIVE POSITIONS OF THE AXES OF THE TWO MANDRELS, A TOOTHED PINION RIGIDLY FIXED TO SAID JOURNAL, A DISH GEAR MOUNTED FOR ROTATION ABOUT A FIXED AXIS AND HAVING AN INTERNAL RING OF TEETH CONCENTRIC WITH THE ORBITAL PATH OF ADJUSTMENT OF SAID JOURNAL AND MESHING CONTINUOUSLY WITH THE TEETH OF SAID PINION, IRRESPECTIVE OF THE LATTER''S ADJUSTED ORBITAL POSITION, FOR DRIVING SAID PINION AND SAID ONE OF THE MANDRELS, A SECOND JOURNAL INTEGRAL WITH THE OTHER OF SAID MANDRELS, AN EXTERNAL RING OF TEETH ON SAID DISH GEAR, GEAR MEANS COACTING BETWEEN SAID EXTERNAL RING OF TEETH 